About

Welcome to my learning for the OCA Creative Arts Today course. My name is Lorna Cole, I recently turned 20 and come from a small town in Dorset, where I live with my parents and two younger sisters. After finishing school, I didn’t want to rush into a degree for the sake of it and knew I wanted to start saving money as I’d love to travel at some point. To achieve this I’m currently working as a cleaner, which isn’t relevant to my interests but has provided me with practical work experience. It’s also allowed me to stay connected with the town community since I work in a primary school. In addition to this, I work online as a Social Media Evaluator, something that is useful to me as I’d be interested in working within digital media, particularly as I’m aware of the relevance of social media in today’s society.

Alongside this, I also run a self-titled lifestyle blog – www.lornacole10.blogspot.com, which I started as an outlet to continue exploring my enjoyment of writing, photography and other forms of creativity. It’s also somewhere I’m able to share my interests and various life experiences as well allowing me to connect with people around the world.

I studied both GCSE and A Level Art & Design which helped me to develop my creative eye, as well as an ability to analyse and explore different meanings or perspectives of a piece of work. I know these skills will be helpful when doing my course as I already have an understanding of how to respond, critique and form opinions about a variety of media. For my A Levels I also studied English Literature, Geography and Sport – all of which helped me to further develop my ability to communicate coherently as well as being analytical, evaluative and learning to utilise context to develop a deeper understanding of the subject. My Sports qualification involved me predominantly working individually to complete coursework so required a lot of self discipline – something I found suited me and will definitely prove useful when working with the OCA. I became very familiar with working on tasks and meeting deadlines so hope I’ll be able to quickly get back into this routine of productivity.

For some time, I knew I wanted to continue progressing in the creative field but wasn’t sure about a specific avenue or career, hence why the Creative Arts Today course is ideal for me. I hope to build upon the skills and knowledge I’ve already acquired, as well as gaining a more rounded, deeper understanding of my chosen subject. I would like to progress onto a degree in the Creative Arts, possibly focusing on photography and writing – though I’m open to different options should I change my mind during the development of this course. Overall, I hope that studying with the OCA will help me to create new opportunities, meet new people  and give me a better sense of direction with regards to my future and a career path.